Austin Hollins scorches Northwestern for five 3-pointers in three minutes
If the makers of the classic arcade game NBA Jam ever created a college hoops version, it probably would have looked a lot like Minnesota wing Austin Hollins during the second half of the Gophers' 69-51 victory over Northwestern.
Hollins was so scalding hot for one three-minute second-half stretch there might as well have been singed nets and flames shooting out of the basketball.
In six possessions from the 12:02 mark of the second half to the 8:48 mark, Hollins sank five 3-pointers, more than he'd ever hit in an entire game before prior to Sunday. The most impressive of them was the fourth one, a 25 footer over the extended arms of a 7-foot defender.
Hollins' three-minute blitz extended Minnesota's lead from nine to an insurmountable 20 by the time it was over. He finished with a pedestrian 19 points on 6 of 9 shooting, but his shooting barrage was all anyone could talk about after the game.
"I was just feeling it, so I wanted to put it up there," Hollins told the Minneapolis Star Tribune after the game. "We didn't get a lot of shots up in the first half and the ones we did get up, we weren't making them. So it was important for us to come out strong and shoot the ball because that's what we do."
Minnesota desperately needed that spark after a lethargic first half in which it scored only 17 points yet led by three going into the break. The Gophers improve to 14-1 overall and 2-0 in the Big Ten entering a tough road game at Illinois on Wednesday.
